The Gargoyle’s Gift (The Gargoyle Knights #2)
1. Lovette
Chapter 1
Lovette
“ A bsolutely not! Just what exactly do you think you’re doing?” I turned up the wicks on all the oil lamps on my way into the building, making the intruder flinch away from the sudden light. “You, again. Why on earth are you stumbling about in my infirmary in the middle of the night, Gaius Caledon?”
To his credit, the hulking man startled at my words, but he didn't so much as pause as he rummaged around in my supplies cabinet. “Healer,” was all he offered in greeting. Several rolls of gauze and a pile of bandages littered the floor when he finally stood.
“What are you after in there?” I shooed him with my arms. “You’re making a mess of things, just go sit down.”
I’d been dreaming of the special lemon-and-lavender meringue pie my mother always used to make for my birthday. Of sitting in a glade, face turned up into the sunshine. Then the bell went off in my room, alerting me that someone required medical attention, ripping me from my peaceful slumber before I got to have even a single dream taste. I nearly tripped coming down the stairs because of my robe, and now I was surrounded by the stench of old ale and blood. Adrenaline and frustration had my skin flushed hot.
“I don’t need your help,” he slurred, staggering hard against one of the beds. The iron leg screeched as it dragged against the stone floor.
“Of course you don’t. Sit.” One gentle shove on his shoulder was enough for him to sit hard on the thin mattress.
Gaius was still in his full stone form, long dark hair knotted and wild around his face, greenish-gray skin cool and solid to the touch. His wings were tucked irritably behind him, but one clearly hung lower than the other, injured, again .
“You don’t get to order me around,” he grumbled, trying and failing to point a finger at me as I snatched the needle and thread he’d pilfered from his hand. Even sitting, he was nearly as tall as I was in my human skin. A logical person would have been afraid of him, especially so incensed as he was, but I was simply irritated. That seemed to be my natural state around him.
“In here I do. Besides, you’re the one who rang for help, you obstinate creature.” My hand went to my hip. In my hurry to respond to the bell, I’d neglected to put on leggings, so I was standing in just my favorite oversized tunic and lightweight robe. After giving me a lingering once-over from head to toe, he frowned intensely and let out a wobbly breath.
“Not on purpose,” he grumbled. “Tripped coming through the door.”
I sighed, pulling the edges of my robe together and cinching the belt tighter. “Whether you meant to or not, you woke me up. So here I am. Let me do my job.”
He stretched his leg out with a grimace, the one that had been severed not all that long ago. Thanks to some healing elixir and his ability to stone sleep, it had fully reattached, but it was not the same as it had been. The blade that had removed it and one of his forearms had some kind of curse imbedded in the steel, so the limbs it cleaved through had blackened rapidly, becoming deadened and stiff. Blood was flowing again, the skin color returned to normal, but it was clear they bothered him often.
“What have you gotten yourself into this time?” My tone softened slightly as I looked at the new gash in the membrane of his wing and several deep scratches over his shoulder and chest.
“None of your business.” The man was clearly tired, his haggard expression troubled and sad as he sagged into himself.
Gaius had always been a bit surly, especially with those of us related to my father. Their ages-old tension over a long-ago battle and the lives lost there lingered over the rest of us as much as it did them. The last few weeks, however, he’d been more intensely miserable than ever. Having limbs removed and getting fired from one’s post by the stone kin council would do that to someone, I supposed.
I maneuvered him on the cot, having him lie on one side, so I could get the best access to his wing. “Come on then, you made it my business when you rang that bell.”
“It was an?—”
“Accident, sure. I heard you the first time. You’re here, in any case. You know as well as I do that it’ll be much nicer work if I do it, and you’re rather choosy about your wings as I recall.”
He mumbled something under his breath as I started making small, careful stitches through the leathery skin. He’d relaxed under my hand, despite all his complaining. His breathing was slowed and his eyes drooped closed by the time I was halfway through. Once his wing was mended, I asked him to sit up.
“Let me look at your shoulder.”
“It’s fine. Stone sleep will fix it.”
I glared down at him, his chin sagging against his chest, body swaying gently from alcohol or exhaustion… or both.
“Gaius.” The exasperation in my tone made his eyes open. He blinked slowly, then sighed as he swung his legs off the side of the bed and leaned his elbows against his knees. I stiffened when the top of his head brushed against the underside of my breasts as he steadied himself. Stepping into him, I gently prodded at the edges of the nasty gashes in his skin as his forehead pressed into my diaphragm. That’s why I was suddenly short of breath, I told myself. Plenty of patients had used my body to help prop themselves up. That’s all he was doing.
“If you don’t like the work I do, you could always stop getting yourself so torn up you need repairs. Seems an easy fix. Putting all your faith into stone sleep is risky with some of these nasty-looking wounds.” I stepped back so I could grab some supplies, his body nearly collapsing on itself without my support. When I returned, I positioned his head to rest on my stomach, tensing as his arms wound around my thighs for better balance.
“This is going to sting,” I warned, splashing some distilled alcohol over the deep, ragged claw marks.
“Burns!” He swore, breath hot through the thin fabric covering my skin, fingers grabbing at my robe.
“I did warn you.” He only grunted in response as I patted the wounds with clean cloth, blotting away the mess. “Where do you keep flying off to that you come back needing to be sewn up, anyway?”
He muttered something incomprehensible moments before dropping into ragged snoring, his weight against me firm, his grasp on my clothing finally loosening.
I just shook my head and finished up. Once I was satisfied, I maneuvered him onto his back on the little bed. I gave his uninjured shoulder a good shake, his snores tapering into a healthy swear-laden grumble. “You can sleep here, foolish man, but shift, yes? So that the rest of the damage heals?”
“Don’t tell me what to do,” he groused, succumbing to the healing stone sleep despite sleepily arguing with me.
Once he was in his statue form, I cleaned up the mess he’d made of my supplies before turning down the lamps and going back upstairs.
I went through the calming motions of washing my hands and face, the mirror showing I had dark circles under tired blue eyes and voluminous and wild blonde curls, both from having had my sleep interrupted. I even made a cup of hot tea to help myself relax again. I found it difficult to rest when I had a patient downstairs, but there was nothing more Gaius needed from me. I pulled out my ledger out so I could properly record the infirmary visit as I got comfortable on the sofa, a cool breeze rippling the pages as it blew through my second-floor apartment.
What an infuriating man. Did he have no self-preservation instinct at all? Where was he going in order to find fights to pick anyway? He’d been removed from his council post, so there were no more missions within Revalia to report to. And because of the way his limbs had healed, he’d not yet been added back to the stone kin sentry rotation either. Yet, he’d shown up in my infirmary twice already, late at night, needing mending of one kind or another. Each time he looked far worse for wear and was almost certainly spending as much time as possible drunk.
I forced myself to close my eyes and seek the same kind of sleep I’d recommended for him, hoping to find clarity on the other side.
Gaius was gone before I got down to the infirmary the next morning. The sun was barely up, the birds mostly still asleep even, but I was greeted by silence when I popped my head in to say good morning. To my surprise, he’d even stripped the mattress and left the sheets in a neatly folded stack at the foot of the bed.
I dropped the linens in a basket to take care of later on my way to the meetinghouse for coffee and breakfast, oddly irritated I hadn’t gotten to speak with him.
My sister Imogen was already at a table, her favorite tankard full of steaming coffee, a plate piled with food in front of her. She grunted at me as I slid onto the bench across from her.
“Good morning to you too.” I smiled back at her. “Big plans today?”
She settled back in her chair, cup between her hands. “I have to repair a blade or two. You?”
I stacked a fried egg onto a slice of toast. “No patients today that I know of. If the infirmary were any cleaner, I’d be able to see my reflection in the floor. Do you need any help?”
She squinted at me. “You hate helping me.”
“I hate being bored more.”
“Mmm.” Her head tilted to the side as she watched me eat.
“Who are you doing repairs for?”
Her mouth twitched as she set her cup down and reached for her fork. “Since when do you care so much about what’s happening at the forge?”
“Just making conversation.”
Imogen sighed and wiped the smears of egg and gravy off her plate with some toast. “Someone left their blade on the table before I got there this morning. It needs work, will probably take most of my day. Maybe all of it.”
The food stuck in my throat. “Gaius?”
My sister nodded, a sly grin on her face. “Again.” She clearly knew, without me saying a word, that he’d come seeking my help as well as hers the night before.
“Bad?”
She shrugged her powerful shoulders, one hand lifting her dark braid, throwing it to her back. “Bad enough.”
“Same. What do you think he’s up to?”
“I have no idea. And it’s not really my concern, besides.”
I blinked at the warning in her tone. “It could be dangerous, Imo. Whatever it is he’s doing. If Gaius is out there playing vigilante?—”
“Even if he is, it’s not your concern, Lovette.” She shook her head, frown on her mouth. There was something especially embarrassing about a big sister putting you in your place like she was ashamed of your behavior. The shame was instantly balanced by indignation, however.
“If he’s going to keep waking me in the wee hours needing to be stitched up, it most certainly is.” It was the same reasoning I’d given him, but no less accurate.
Imogen’s disapproval twitched into a weak smile. She pushed her plate away. “You can come to the forge if you want. But you’re going to be my runner.”
“Fine.”
My sister shook her head and laughed at me. “This is going to be fun.”
The glee in her eyes was enough to make me regret my need to keep my hands busy. I could have taken a relaxing day to myself, gone into the woods and just sat with my face in the sun like I’d done in my dream. Instead, I’d volunteered for torture at the hands of my big sister to keep my mind off a man it should never have been on in the first place.